Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Equal rights for Saudi women

Women want the right to drive
in Saudi Arabia. Prohibiting women from driving motor vehicles by law has no
basis in the Koran or Islam. Instead, the ban has its roots in traditional Arab
misogyny. Depriving women of the right to drive is part of the effort to
control women, whom Arab conservatives view as objects to possess and therefore
of temptation rather than as human beings.

Directly supporting the Saudi
women who in recent weeks have flaunted the ban on their driving is difficult,
generally impossible, for people in non-Arab countries. However, people of
faith can keep Saudi women in our prayers, discourage our governments from
uncritically supporting the Saudi regime, and encourage views of Arabs and
Islam that consider factors other than oil.

Supporters of the full civil
rights for Saudi women (the ban on driving is but one aspect of a complex legal
code designed to keep women subjugated to men) can also act by reducing their
dependence on petroleum. Western oil imports literally fuel the Saudi economy.
The Saudi king is spending $150 billion in an attempt to buy peace in that
dessert land, trying to prevent the “Arab spring” from spreading to his
kingdom. The United States, for example, imports 13% of its oil from Saudi
Arabia. Effecting energy independence from oil would undermine the short-term stability
of the Saudi regime; in the long-term, growing demand for oil by China and India
will more than compensate for any reduction in western imports.

Reducing Saudi oil revenues not
only reduces the income of the Saudi royal family but also reduces funding to
the Wahhabi sect of Islam with which the royal family has close ties and which teaches
the subjugation of women as part of its understanding of Islam. That teaching
reflects a dramatic revision in what Mohammed taught. His aim was to elevate
women to be the equal of men. He himself worked for a woman, Khadija, whom he
subsequently married. He also taught that women have the right to own property,
to inherit property, and to divorce – all precepts the Wahhabis reject.

Advocating full civil rights
for Saudi women can also be a constructive catalyst for western men and women
to reconsider their behavior and attitude toward women:

·Do both partners share equally in housework? Survey
data consistently show that in mixed gender households in which both partners
are employed, the woman shoulders a disproportionate share of the housework.

·Are tasks in a mixed gender household or work situation
shared/assigned based on gender stereotypes or individual interests/abilities?

·Do comments and thoughts treat members of the
gender to which one is attracted as objects or persons? Sex sells. The media is
full of images that presume the consumer/viewer will respond affirmatively to messages
that treat attractive people as sex objects.

·If religious, does the religious organization to
which you belong treat women as second-class people? Reasons for such policies
variously include tradition, incorrect interpretation of scripture, and male
dominance. Religious communities should set the standard for welcoming and
incorporating all people, regardless of gender, as equally worthy of dignity
and respect, equally worthy of filling all roles within the community.

Jesus warned that those who
would judge should look for the mote within their own eye before judging another.
Dehumanization of anyone is wrong. But as we campaign to end egregious
treatment of women in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, we do well to examine our
treatment of women to eradicate any remaining vestiges of bias and prejudice.